4th Quarter Project info

Introduction

Each quarter, you are required to complete a project outside of class that demonstrates your detailed understanding of a topic of your choice. Since 4th Quarter is about water, acids & bases and organic chemistry, your topic will be from that general subject area. Your project, which must be completed individually, will be due:

Tuesday, May 20th, 2014 by 7:30am

and will be worth 50 points. You will create your paper on or upload it to Google Drive as a Microsoft Word document (.doc) or OpenOffice Writer document (.odp). There will be no follow-up assignment this quarter.

Topics

You may choose a topic from one of the following four general subject areas:

the production of and economic impact of a chemical produced by industrial chemistry

a chemical process or environmental issue related to water

a biochemistry or biotechnology advancement in medicine in the last five years

a specific example or process of environmental/green chemistry

Your specific topic must be unique for your class period – first come, first serve – and you must decide on your topic by Friday, May 2nd. Your 4th Quarter Project Outline assignment will be due on Friday, May 9th through Google Drive, and it is worth 10 points. Your 4th Quarter Project Rough Draft assignment will be due on Wednesday, May 14th through Google Drive, and it is worth 10 points.

Project products

For this project, in order to demonstrate your understanding of your topic, you will write a short research paper. All papers will be graded primarily for their information, but also for how well they explain your topic, how easy they are to understand, and for correct grammar and formatting. It is expected that you will write your paper in an informative, third-person voice, but you are encouraged to consider other ways of presenting your topic (such as a narrative, a semi-fictional journal entry, a conversation between two scientists, etc.). At minimum, your paper must include the following:

a title page with your name, project title, due date and class period in the center

a references page with at least four references (one must be a print source or electronic journal) in the APA style

papers submitted without a references page will NOT be graded

Papers not meeting these criteria will lose points and, as a result, will receive a lower grade.

References/citations

All papers must include citations to original source material using the APA style guidelines. Your paper must reference at least four different sources, one of which must be from a print source or electronic journal. You may NOT use WikiPedia as a primary source.

Using source material without referencing is plagiarism; papers submitted without references will not be graded. The APA citation style is explained and demonstrated here: APA Style References Handout

All papers will be scanned electronically for plagiarism – DO NOT “COPY & PASTE” YOUR PAPER FROM OTHER SOURCES. Any student caught committing plagiarism will automatically receive a “0” on the entire 4th Quarter Project (worth 20% of your overall grade, or two letter grades) and will be referred to administration for additional punishment.